If you don't, and chances are you don't, you are in good company. It took me years of dedicated study within an organized work study process to begin to wrap my mind around the concept of revolutionary struggle so if you aren't engaged in a similar process there's no way you can have a fluid understanding of these concepts based simply on watching and reading capitalist news sources. That's true because those sources work night and day to confuse you around this question. Their agenda is always in keeping the masses of people dead-set against revolution, even if you can't coherently articulate what it is. Just be against it because revolution doesn't serve the interests of the multi-national corporations that own and control media in the world today.

We don't have time and space to define things like capitalism and multi-national corporations here. You can find a lot of information about each in other posts on this blog, and certainly through other sources (its about that dedicated study thing again), but for the purpose of this post, the point is that instead of getting a balanced assessment of anything from capitalist media, educational institutions, etc, what you consistently receive is a framing that suggests overtly and covertly that any form of armed resistance against the capitalist state apparatus is incapable of success as well as out and out insane. So, the message is no matter what the grievance, no matter how legitimate the outrage, your options for response must fit within the parameters provided to you by the capitalist system and any thoughts that even suggest something else are subversive and foolish on your part. It's foolish because there is no force on Earth that can expect to successfully defeat the capitalist/imperialist network (led by the U.S.) in a military confrontation - right? Capitalism has all the weapons, they're certainly better than anyone in history at making weapons. They have the firepower so give up any thoughts of challenging them in a physical way because you will definitely lose. You will definitely die.

Well, that's definitely the analysis of the power structure and at the present time, the sad truth is they have convinced the majority of the people on Earth to believe that analysis unquestionably. That reality doesn't discourage us one bit though because we know that Sekou Ture was correct when he said "truth crushed to Earth a thousand times will rise again!" That truth is that what we have seen in the U.S. Jamaica, throughout the rest of the Caribbean and South America, Europe, and Australia, from Africans tired of state repression is uprisings. The definition of these uprisings being people rising up in a spontaneous fashion and striking out in a dis-organized method against the state. Uprisings have been happening for over 500 years. Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) characterized them correctly when he said "we have been burning these societies from plantations to cities!" Uprisings. Spontaneous. Bold, yet dis-organized. Focused primarily on expressing the rage of the people, not in creating a new system that replaces capitalism. Why are these uprisings not sustainable? Why, whether it's Paris, London, Sydney, Australia, Los Angeles, Ferguson, or Baltimore, is the result the same; people rise up in that spontaneous way for two or three days until the national guard or military arrives and the rebellion is crushed? The answer is that uprisings aren't built to be sustained because the necessary political work that separates uprisings from revolution hasn't been done. The mass political education work where the people (women, youth, elders, students, workers, etc.) learn that a social economy where people are more important than money (socialism you'all) is what we need and until we organize and fight to achieve it, the state will continue to do what its in place to do, oppress us.

Uprisings don't contain the component of this work so they don't last, but what they do accomplish is they show us how even a dis-organized rebellion can push the system to the brink. This should demonstrate to us just how possible revolution actually is. What's missing? That day to day work to politicize the people. When that work is done the people's consciousness prepares them to take control of the production apparatus in a collective way. Need an example? The Cuban Revolution provides one. Its not a perfect revolution, but there really isn't such a thing anyway. What the Cubans have done is provide a clear example that collective consciousness is possible. They took a small Caribbean country, just 90 miles from the most powerful capitalist country in human history, and staged a revolution that seized power from a U.S. surrogate dictator named Batista and those Cubans have maintained that revolution for going on 60 years. And, in spite of the U.S. propaganda effort to convince some of you that the Cubans will wilt under the seduction of being able to have a relationship with the wonderful uncle sam, if you study the Cuban Revolution you will know better. Everyone from the United Nations to the International Monetary Fund admits that the Cuban Revolution is consolidated among it's people. Approximately 75% of the people there were born after the revolution. As a result, they have no experience living in a society where you have to pay for basic healthcare. Where you have to take out corporate loans to get a college education. Where there are no limits on what you have to pay for living expenses and where if you are willing to work, you have absolutely no guarantee that you will find employment, despite your best efforts to do so. Don't fool yourself. No one there is anxious to lose all those hard fought for rights, but all of that represents some of the gains of the revolution where the point being made here is in differentiating revolution from uprisings. In the Cuban Revolutionary war, they had the guerrillas who descended down the Sierra Maestra Mountains in Santiago De Cuba in 1956, but they also had a well organized force working with people in the cities. Building consciousness to create mass strikes, work stoppages, school walkouts, etc. The pressure these direct actions brought on the corrupt regime created conditions that the guerrillas in the mountains were able to capitalize on. As morale began to fade for those fighting to protect the corrupt regime, the guerrillas began to win more battles. They captured military troops, but they never abused them. Instead, they gave them political education lessons and released them. In time, the word began to spread among the troops because people are not stupid. They had been treated better by the "dreaded communist rebels" than they had experienced in the military. Plus, what the guerrillas were telling them, coupled with what more and more of their friends, co-workers, and family members were saying as they were influenced by the city campaigns, began to convince them to abandon any efforts to fight the rebels. Massive numbers of troops began abandoning their posts. Many of them joined the guerrillas, along with peasants who the guerrilla fighters encountered (who the guerrillas also treated respectfully while explaining their mission in the process). This is the strategy revolutions employ to overcome the massive military might of the imperialists. The weaponry is only as good as the people operating it who are working people. The issue isn't the equipment, its revolutionaries winning the hearts and minds of the people who are currently maintaining the capitalist system.

So, we don't need to debate about how uprisings won't defeat capitalism. We agree with you on that. What those of us who are revolutionaries need to do is start engaging in the political work to heighten the people's consciousness because when this happens you see the meaning of Huey P. Newton's statement when he said "the man's technology will never match the will of the people!" History is full of examples. From the Haitian Revolution to Hezbollah's defeat of Israel in 2006, these things occurred because the Lebanese people supported Hezbollah. They did so because of the work Hezbollah did in building the community in the years before that. Their example was so consistent that people protesting the government's non-response to the flooding in New Orleans the year before began carrying signs that said Hezbollah is the model that FEMA should emulate. I'm not saying Hezbollah is the model for revolution, but you can certainly understand some of the concepts of relationship building and creating conscious capacity from looking at them. It's that understanding that will help you understand how revolution is completely different than uprisings. And its that understanding that will ultimately be the undoing of the arrogant capitalist system.

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I don't see disagreement as a negative because I understand that Frederick Douglass was correct when he said "there is no progress without struggle." Our brains are muscles. Just like any other muscle in our body if we don't stress it and push it, the brain will not improve. Or, as a bumper sticker I saw once put it, "If you can't change your mind, how do you know it's there?"